


Moonage Daydream

by novadiablo



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 15:25:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novadiablo/pseuds/novadiablo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He’s dead, silly. Everyone here is. He comes from the future, in 2006, where they have phones that don’t need to be connected and televisions that don’t have test cards.”</p>
<p>“Well, why didn’t you just say so? I assumed we were all from around the same time.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Gene found himself in the Cortina smelling like rotting feet and whisky. His mouth tasted like salt and whisky and his joints ached like he’d just run a marathon. His clothes were stiff, and in some places crunchy, and while Gene didn’t remember eating cake, he was sure it could have happened at any time from 9pm onwards. The last thing he remembered was staggering towards the Cortina with his arm around his DI for support. The drunk leading the blind drunk, it appeared. He could vaguely recall loud laughs that could only be Chris’s. The man had a way of laughing that was insulting to the ear drums.

Gene cracked his back and accepted that today was going to be a shit day, indicated rather loudly by the thudding pain at the base of his skull.

He had no idea how much worse it would get.

∞

The first thing Sam Tyler was aware of when he waded his way back to consciousness was that his arse hurt like fuck. The second was that his mouth tasted disgusting and he smelt like sweat that wasn’t his. The third was that someone cleaved his head in half with a carving knife and he’d only just noticed. Well, that’s what it felt like.

He managed to pull himself out of bed and into a shower somehow, trying his hardest to remember what happened without trying too hard, because existing hurt at that moment. He remembered being on a high after the last blag foil, and going to the pub with the Guv and Chris, and that was all.

Dragging himself away from the warm spray, Sam inspected the marks that had shown up all over his body. His horrified brain began to put two and two together before it got distracted by the utterly confusing method of putting on a shirt.

∞

Everyone in the station was worse for wear that day. Chris had to be woken several times and by the end of his day he had ink smudges over both cheeks. Sam and his brain did what they did best, paperwork, avoiding thinking about how everyone noticed his wincing steps and the hickies that littered his neck. Gene didn’t come out of his office at all; when Annie wandered in twice to tell him about possible blags he set the plod on it and only accepted a tea from Phyllis, who looked like she could use one herself. Ray didn’t even turn up, but probably because he had an innocent head cold; he’d gone home early the day before.

Annie barely spoke to Sam that day, but by her reaction to his greeting he assumed she thought he’d been with another woman. He hadn’t though. Not a woman.

∞

Sam didn’t bother with the usual sexuality crisis. Why worry? He was dead as a doornail, splat on the side of the road somewhere and really, shagging a guy wasn’t going to change much. Except the way he sat for a few days. It’s a shame he hadn’t been more careful with his mysterious lover and he really should check for damage, but he couldn’t bear asking Annie to do it. Not with her crush on him and all.

“Tyler!” Guv barked from his office. “In here!”

Sam snapped out of his daydream and limped into Gene’s office, raising a painful eyebrow at the man.

“Sit,” his DCI snapped.

“I’d rather not,” Sam replied tiredly.

Gene gave him a glare that could make even his short hair curl and when Sam sat down he moved his chair forward and dropped his voice.

“What happened last night is not to be shared with anyone or I’ll have your ding-a-ling for dinner, capisce?”

Sam gave him a blank look.

“No comprendo? Or do you usually wake up with an arse achin’?”

The way the realisation dawned Sam’s face would have been comical if the situation didn’t call for all the seriousness in the world.

“It was you!?” he hissed, showering the desk with angry spit, “You fucked me in the ass and then ran off? Where I come from that would be rape.”

“Yeah, well bloody ‘yde don’t know anything. I was more smashed than you were. I only remembered because you brought your sorry little ass in today and triggered my memory. Anyway, you were just as eager…” But Sam wasn’t listening. His face was a look of horrified terror.

“I sucked your cock!” he ejaculated sharply and Gene winced at the crudeness of those words coming from such an eloquent mouth.

“Don’t go worryin’, I returned the favour.” Gene snapped, as Sam stood up.

“Seems like you’ve already had my ding-a-ling for a midnight snack, I’ve nothing to worry about.” Sam called back quite loudly as he sauntered as sexily as one can with an ass flaming like the pits of hell.

∞

Despite the screaming invitation for a rematch, nothing much changed around the CID. Nothing noticeable happened to the relationship of Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler – they still fought, drank and went everywhere together. However, they were both detectives, and detectives know that just because nothing was noticed didn’t mean that nothing happened. Over the next few months, Sam Tyler became the DCI’s only useful fantasy, much to his dismay. In fact, he extended his record time without wanking from a week to a month just to avoid think about that luscious tush around him. Because, unlike Sam, the Guv he was banking on a good forty years of ogling tits, which was really too long to discover that he liked cock.

But really, who could say no to Sam Tyler. Little Sammy Tyler in his flared pants and tight shirts, with his hair a little longer now and his luscious neck – oh, that one got Gene like no other. When he looked at Ray or Chris, he saw only blokes, and even Annie now was just a person. He’d gone from wanting to put his dick in anything that moved to only wanting to shove his DI against a wall to get close to him.

Sam was another story. He still didn’t really know if this was all in his head – Gene, Annie, Ray, all of the others might just be in his imagination. And his imagination had been a real dick when it decided to create Gene fucking Hunt. He was everything Sam didn’t want in a person, and some how he became the only person Sam wanted.

∞

“Bad day?” Test Card Girl asked him as he slumped on his bed, offering him a bowl of soup. Sam rubbed his face.

“Yeah, dreadful. Have a good day yourself?” He looked up at Test Card Girl, and she smiled a big grin she’d tried to keep under control for her friend’s sake.

“I played with that local girl, Shannon. And I saw little you again, Sam!”

“Well don’t go messing up my childhood,” he warned her jokingly, forcing a smile on his face. Test Card Girl was very wise, however, despite her childish ways.

“Was Mean Gene being awful again today, Sammy?”

Test Card Girl was his closest friend, other than Gene, and the only one he actually let call him ‘Sammy’.

Sam shook and sighed.

“He’s coming over for drinks after the meeting with the Missus.” Sam said sadly – the Missus always put the Guv in a crap mood.

“Shall I clear off then?” Test Card Girl asked, and even though Sam didn’t like a little girl like her wondering the streets, he knew she was older than even he was, and it was better than going back to that cold, lonely chalkboard with nothing but creepy doll for company. By coming back, Sam had saved her. She would die for him, if she could.

Sam looked at her, his eyes watering.

“I’ll fix you some supper. You go have a shower.” She kissed his head in a motherly way and brushed her palm over his hair and he smiled at her and headed to the bathroom.

∞

Gene was foul when he turned up at Sam’s. The Missus had been trying to take the house for a good few months and she’d finally succeeded. The Guv was officially homeless and divorced, and didn’t much like it at all.

He drank more whisky that should be legal and ate Test Card Girl’s beautiful Chicken Maryland without even acknowledging its existence. He whined and complained and looked on the verge of either crying or going on a murderous rampage through Manchester when Sam tucked him into his own bed and lay down on some blankets on the ground.

 

He was woken by an explosive ‘WHO THE BLOODY FUCK ARE YOU!?”. He flipped over to see Gene sat bolt upright in his bed while Test Card Girl was backed against the wall.

“Gene, don’t swear at Test Card Girl.” Sam mumbled tiredly as he stood up and kissed her on the head.

The Guv looked half furious, half ridiculously confused as Sam walked into the kitchen.

“Gladys,” he said in a surprisingly calm voice, “why is there a little girl in your flat?”

Sam rolled his eyes as he passed Test Card Girl the box of Rice Chex from the overhead cupboards. “She’s the Test Card Girl. From the telly?” Sam explained, as if this was a normal occurrence.

“Yes, okay, but why is she in your flat?” Gene asked, his nostrils flaring.

“Because I don’t want to go back to the blackboard, Gene.” She turned to Sam. “I thought you were Sam, not Gladys.”

“I am, it’s a nickname.” Sam replied distractedly from the corner of the kitchen, where he was filling the jug.

Gene fell back on the bed.

“You are so fucking weird, Sam.” He grunted, and earned an empty Chex box to the head.

“Stop swearing in front of Test Card Girl!” Sam called loudly. Gene sat bolt upright again and began advancing on Sam.

“I don’t think you’re really from Hyde,” he accused, probably still half drunk. “I think you’ve been lying to us this whole time. So tell me, Sam,” and he spat out the name as he took a hold of Sam’s shirt, “where do you really come from?”

Sam pushed him off, and straightened his shirt, and the tension in the room was palpable, until Test Card Girl piped up.

“He’s dead, silly. Everyone here is. He comes from the future, in 2006, where they have phones that don’t need to be connected and televisions that don’t have test cards.”

Gene raised an eyebrow as Sam sighed.

“Well, why didn’t you just say so? I assumed we were all from around the same time.”

Sam dropped the milk.


	2. Chapter Two

“You knew? You knew and you never told anyone?”

“Course I knew, Sam! And I didn’t tell you because you weren’t completely gone. It was your own choice to go back or not.”

“What about Chris and Ray and all the others? Christ, even Annie’s dead.”

“They don’t know, though. They forgot their old lives.”

“Hang on,” Sam had a brainwave. “How come things I do now effect my life in the future?”

“Christ, Sam, stuffed if I know. I only live here.”

∞

Test Card Girl liked Gene, and they spent the afternoon playing checkers while Sam went food shopping.

That night, after some delicious Eggs Mornay, when Test Card Girl was curled up in Sam’s bed and Gene was sitting in the chair, with Sam leaning against the bed on the floor, they began to talk.

“Ya can’t keep calling her Test Card Girl. She’s a person. She needs a name.”

“Well the real girl who was in the test card was named Carole. I looked her up on Wikipedia when I went back.”

“That’s a good name. What the sod is Wikipeedy-whatsit?”

“She’s lovely.”

“That she is; a fine little specimen. Does she go to school?”

“No, she’s older than me really.”

Gene shifted to lie on the floor near Sam. Sam began to stroke his fingers through Gene’s hair.

“So where are you gonna go?”

“Don’t know, no good places on my wages in Manchester.”

“Get a roommate.” Sam suggested, hoping and praying.

“Well what about you and Carole?”

“What about us?” Sam said faux-absently, playing with the roots of Gene’s strands.

“Well you can’t stay here, it’s a shit hole.”

“That’s true enough.”

“So why don’t we pool resources, you ponce?” He barked as he batted Sam’s hands away, but Sam, more than a little drunk, would not be discouraged.

“Sounds like a plan.”

They fell asleep like that, Sam’s head falling back against the bed and Gene’s cheek resting in Sam’s hand. When Carole woke up she giggled quietly and climbed up onto the bench to get another box of Chex.

∞

“So how long you been here, Guv?” Sam asked over coffee and the paper the next morning.

“Long time, Sam. Longer than you’d think.”

“Nothing changes here, does it?” Sam rubbed his face, wishing he’d drunk less last night.

“Nope. 1973 over and over again. Good year though.”

“Mmm, no more of Bowie’s album come out though.”

“He big, is he?”

“Oh yeah. Think he’s retired.”

“A fairy?”

“When the mood strikes him I’d imagine. Married a woman.”

“Hmm. But what’s he doing here? Not dead. Not a cop. Don’t make sense.”

“He dressed up as a cop once. He’s restless. And he dies eventually, Gene. Everyone does.”

“Shut it, you’re making me depressed.”

“If it’s any consolation, you can’t kill yourself.”

“Samuel, how in any way, shape or form is that consolation?”

“This one looks good. We could turn the dining area into a bedroom.”

“That’d make three. Eating on a couch sounds good.”

∞

“Gene, don’t be ridiculous. It’s one sodding night. I’m not sleeping on a couch. I pay just as much as you do.”

“Sam, I don’t want to go fishing around in these boxes for some ruddy jammies.”

“Gene, we can just sleep in the nud. You’ve seen me handcuffed to a bed and I’ve seen you wobble in your budgie-smugglers.

“I do not wobble!” Guv stated indignantly.

“Shush, Carole is in the next room!”

“Fine. Whatever.”

∞

The third room will never exist, but neither of them are to know that yet. All Gene knew was that sleeping next to his DI was exceedingly comfortable, and tricking him into changing both of their address paperwork was pure genius. Something else he knew was that he was slowly falling in love with Carole’s beautiful ethereal quality and her confusing ways. She was a lovely girl – the daughter he never had and the housewife he missed. His feelings for her were strictly fatherly – which is more than he could say for Sam. Every time he saw Sam, he felt warmth spread through his chest and a smile across his face. He’s begun waxing lyrical in his own bloody head about a bloke. And those weren’t worst times. The worst times where when he remembered snatches of the drink-fuelled night – the one spent together in more ways than one. The worst times where when he feared it might happen again less than he wanted it to.

∞

Sam left that afternoon briefly while they were on a blag prevention – a punishable offence. Even Sam’s weak ‘I was checking on Carole’ hadn’t been enough to curb the wrath of a sober, frustrated and marginally emasculated Gene. After a few punches to the stomach and possible permanent kidney damage, Sam had agreed it was his shout at the pub tonight and the argument was amiably settled. After assigning tomorrow’s paperwork, Sam sat on the bonnet of the Cortina, waiting for Gene to make his merry old time leaving the CID office. He finally did twenty minutes later.

“Oh, take your time then,” Sam said loudly, faking annoyed.

“We aren’t going to the pub,” Gene mumbled and Sam, who had now taken his seat in the car, stared at him questioningly.

“Why the ‘ell not?” He demanded, really annoyed at having been kept waiting.

“Because I don’t want to.” Gene said, starting the engine. Sam frowned.

“If this is about today with Carole, I am sor-“

“It’s not about anything. I’ll drop you off if you want.”

“Wha- no. I’m shoutin’ you!” Gene sighed.

“Sam, I just don’t wanna go, okay.”

Sam was silent for the rest of the ride. When they reached the Railway Arms, he turned in his seat and looked at Gene.

“Just come in for a while. You don’t have to drink or whatever you don’t wanna do. Just come in.”

Gene rolled his eyes but conceded, and he learnt that night that when your DI housemate buys you five beers in a row you cannot turn them down.

∞

Sam was slammed against the wall and he was sober this time, and Gene was too. Well, relatively.

“What’re you doing?” Sam breathed into Gene’s face, eyes only centimetres apart.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, and Sam clutched at his hair.

“Well don’t stop,” he whispered and their lips finally met for a messy and savagely long kiss. Sam felt Gene’s tongue run along his top lip and he shivered, whimpering. His eyes opened wide, embarrassed, but Gene only pulled back a tiny amount to whisper, ‘Oh, fuck,’ in a rough, harsh voice, and rolled his hips forward.

Then a little voice piped up. “Ahem.”

∞


End file.
